Apple has quietly doubled the capacity of its Time Capsule wireless-link backup disk appliance, from one to two terabytes.

Time Capsule is a networked hard drive, a 7200rpm SATA drive, in a typically Apple-style minimalistic curved white box, along with a dual-band - 2.4GHz and 5GHz - 802.11n Wi-Fi base station, which also supports 802.11a, b, and g. It works with the Time Machine continuous backup facility included with Mac OS X Leopard, and can back-up a group of Macs. It can also be used as a Wi-Fi base station for both Macs and Windows XP and Vista PCs with Apple's AirPort software, and as a wireless network-access storage (NAS) facility, again by both PCs and Macs.

The new 2TB model costs $499.00 (£379) and the 1TB one $299 (£229). In March the 1TBGB version cost $499, so now you get twice as much capacity for your money, which has to be good news. The old 500GB model is no longer listed but apparently available for $199.00 in the US as a clearance or refurbished item.

El Reg has not heard any indication that Apple might add multi-drive support to Time Capsule, internal that is and not the existing USB-connect external drive facility, and so pave the way for RAID protection of its stored data.

Apple UK sells WD's 4TB My Book Studio II dual external drive in its stores though, which needs a wired and not wireless connection. The price is £449.95 ($824.42). ®

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